The Worst Christmas Of My Life - a Christmas to remember for all the
wrong reasons
Alison Steadman plays Angela
Alison Steadman plays Howard's glamorous mother-in-law Angela, who is constantly trying to smooth the fraught relations between her husband Dick and their disaster-prone son-in-law.
She loves working on the series: "Worst Christmas and Worst Week have to be for me the most enjoyable television I've done in years and years. We all really feel like a proper family and always have such a laugh filming.
"The whole cast are great and it was just lovely for the show to be nominated for a Bafta– we had such an enjoyable evening at the awards ceremony.
"When we started filming Worst Christmas we slotted back into our roles so easily and are now beginning to feel like the house we use is actually ours, which is quite a nice dream as it's just so beautiful!"
Some of the scenes she found particularly funny to film: "Any scene with Janine Duvitsky is brilliant – I find it so hard not to laugh! She really is just fantastic - so funny and yet kind of sad at the same time."
She adds: "There was one particular scene where I have gravy splashed over my entire face and I had to keep going and not laugh while still trying to look glamorous which was a bit tricky."
Alison adores Christmas: "One of my happiest childhood memories of Christmas is helping my Mum bake mince pies.
"I also remember my visits to see Father Christmas and at the age of four checking to see how his beard was glued on – as I totally believed he was the real one.
"This year, my own Christmas will be spent with my family and will be fairly quiet I should think. My favourite bits of Christmas are real fires, lovely food and games - I am a bit of a traditionalist."
Biography
Since she trained at East 15 Acting School in the early Seventies, Alison has been a staple figure of British realist films.
She won a plethora of awards for Abigail's Party (BBC) and has enjoyed popularity in more than 35 television projects.
In more recent years Alison starred in the tv adaptation of Pride And Prejudice (BBC), Fat Friends (ITV), The Lenny Henry Show (BBC), The Singing Detective (BBC), Let Them Eat Cake (BBC) and A Ssmall Mourning (BBC).
Alison's theatre credits cover a huge range of shows including: Losing Louis (Hampstead Theatre and Trafalgar Studios), The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband (New Ambassadors Theatre) and Entertaining Mr Sloane (Theatre Royal, Bath & Arts Theatre, West End).
She has also starred in an extensive list of films including Confetti (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Chunky Monkey (dir. Greg Crutwell), Life Is Sweet (Thin Man Films), Topsy Turvey (Thin Man Films) and The Short And Curlies (dir. Mike Leigh).
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